Intricate gold needlework, and a shining door peering out of the separation of the cloths, this reproduction of the Kaaba door is a focal point in Nadia’s family. She laughs telling this story. She says her grandmother was a small Sudanese woman who barely stood five feet tall, and she carried this enormous (and very heavy) framed piece through two airports and onto a plane in her hands, resting on her lap for the entirety of the 14 hour flight on her way back from Umrah. Despite moving three times since then, the piece has always hung the highest in the subsequent living rooms. Nadia said it was more than a decoration. “It was like bringing a piece of Mecca into our living room, and Nini swore it still smelled like Masjid-al Haram years later.” She talks about what it meant to grow up with something that visually beautiful in a home that was otherwise pretty ordinary, and now thinking back, how it made a statement. This is what this household was oriented around. Nadia’s Grandmother Fatima passed away in November of 2023, but her legacy is intertwined with Nadia’s faith. She describes Fatima as the center of their religious life growing up, the one who taught her how to pray and read the Quran, and who made sure to keep Ramadan as exciting as Christmas. In that way, Fatima’s role was not only to preserve faith, but to translate it across generations, ensuring that it would remain a living practice rather than something that faded with time.

– NIO

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant